Nitish plotted to break ties: Bihar Oppn leader Nand Kishore Yadav

The newly elected leader of the Opposition of Bihar assembly, Nand Kishore Yadav slammed chief minister Nitish Kumar for breaking the coalition for his own prime ministerial ambitions and giving in to politics of convenience by joining hands with the Congress.

Speaking against the JD(U) confidence motion, a combative Yadav in his one hour extempore speech charged Nitish with opportunism saying, "You plotted to snap ties since 2009, inspired by what Odisha chief minister Naveen Patanik did there and then befriended the Congress to save your government. You will not survive with this 'jugaad technology," he warned.

Referring to Narendra Modi's erstwhile lowly social status, but the charm, which has stirred a wave in the country, Yadav said Kumar practiced double standards - 'first praising Modi in 2003 and then running him down.'

"You were never in the PM's race. Were you?. If you were not, where was the reason for any quarrel," he said, warning the BJP would publicly release the 5-page speech he gave eulogizing Modi as a 'would be national leader'.

In the same vein, Yadav said, the chief minister had betrayed the people's trust reposed in NDA and should have first resigned and become a leader of the JD(U) legislature party after the split, if he did not fear dissension in his own ranks.

Yadav also trashed Kumar's logic in walking out of NDA because the "Atal-Advani era was over", reminding that the JD(U)'s fortunes improved only after the BJP stitched a partnership with it in 1996.

At one point, he also ridiculed Kumar for importing people from other parties like RJD and sidelining the veterans of Samata party.

"Now, you are feeling happy in being called secular. How is that, somebody who stays in the RJD is tainted and becomes secular when he walks over to JD(U)," Yadav wondered, even as he slammed the chief minister for hijacking the special status category issue as a JD( U) agenda and showcasing Bihar's development as a personal achievement.

"Don't you try to showcase Bihar's growth story as your own achievement. Otherwise it would have a negative impact," he said.

On governance, Yadav took a potshot at Kumar for having failed to check the 'cut and commissions culture' and quashing the MLA development fund to nurse his own ego. "You branded all MLAs as corrupt. Were you able to check the cuts and commission culture?" he asked.